Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Hansard source

Obviously, Senator Hanson-Young, this is a matter that we discussed over the last couple of days. The short answer to your question is yes. We would envisage that the two, if you like, core standards—I'm thinking of the two core standards that we've got out for consultation at the moment, on MNES and offsets—but also potentially other core standards such as First Nations engagement, would apply to all approval decisions. I know that there has been some discussion about whether all the environmental standards should apply to every single assessment and approval decision. While at first flush that may seem like a sensible thing to do, it may well be that over time we develop particular standards that are relevant to particular industries. For argument's sake, if we were to develop a standard specifically relating to the renewable energy sector then it wouldn't make a lot of sense for that to be taken into account if you're assessing a housing development. As I recall, the intention, therefore, is to provide a regulation which sets out which standards apply to which kinds of decisions, but certainly the intention would be to apply those core standards to all approval decisions, regardless of the sector.